Also you can customize dwarfs to give them both a nickname as well as giving them your own profession name. Their colours still stay the same but it makes it a LOT easier to keep track of who's doing what if you organise their profession names properly. That way you don't have to work out who died and can easily find out what your stupid engraver is doing instead of making detailing stone and such in the u(units) menu since you can just quickly look through the list for the profession name you gave them. To do this just v(view) the dwarf, goto the p (preferences) and z (view their profile) then y (customize) and select what you want to change(not completely sure about keys but i think i got it right).
The manager is immensely handy. A friend of mine drowned him on arrival because he didn't have the surplus to satisfy his demands. I made sure to tell him why that's a bad idea. No matter, that fort starved to death because he didn't know how to make farm plots at the time. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
alright well that fort has been abandoned, My poor fisherdorf got swept up in a river flooding and fell down the waterfall 8 tiles down, gunna miss the little guy (and the fact I was probably going to starve without him) <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" />
edit: anyone heard of an elven caravan coming and having no goods to trade?
edit2: I'd like a moment of silence for my best mason. He died in a colapse when I expanded a room for the mayor. He was there from the beginning, he always did his job, he was a good dwarf.
4 dwarves died in this incident.
Later on, another of my masons refused to rest and recover from the incident. He would start his job, then cry out and yell at other dwarves. After while, he fell where he worked and died soon after.
My best (legendary) miner died when he struck magma <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" /> How do you get your soldiers to follow orders? I put my recruits off duty for a while so they could spar, but when a batman showed up and I put them on duty, they just stood outside the fortress, being worthless. They wouldn't go to their station.
<!--quoteo(post=1588480:date=Dec 15 2006, 02:56 AM:name=Manta)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Manta @ Dec 15 2006, 02:56 AM) [snapback]1588480[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> My best (legendary) miner died when he struck magma <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" /> How do you get your soldiers to follow orders? I put my recruits off duty for a while so they could spar, but when a batman showed up and I put them on duty, they just stood outside the fortress, being worthless. They wouldn't go to their station. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> It's possible the leader of the squad was busy or asleep. If he's not around none of the dwarfs in the squad will go to their station. So if there an emergency it's probably best that you zoom on the commander and make sure he's not doing anything like sleeping, drinking or eating or whatever. If he is, reassign the squad under a dwarf that isn't busy and they should move to their station.
Personally I'm for the disassembly of a bridge when there are fishermen on it, you get to see them swim for their lives in random directions until they reach land or drown. I sense a game show coming on: "Will Ibil Outanank drown if he's thrown in the river? Find out tomorrow on <i>Dwarves Without Bridges</i>!"
Of course, I've got like 3 architects and none of them want to build my new bridge, which leads me to believe there's some sort of bug with having one bridge, deleting it and putting one that covers that same area.
heres my 3rd attempted at a fort I'm actually going to make it through the winter this time! I just barely got the food out of the single farm I have, my fisherdorf really came through for me since I figured out how to command him to stop fishing (I wasn't able to trade anything) just got my furnace and smelter up and running and my metaldorf is working on a tincraft for future caravan (you can see me also beginning the road to the west.)
The next items on my list are to make some more stone doors so I can finishing compartmentalizing my fort (most appearent in north section), make a kennel train some wardogs( probably to the left of the barracks), finish the road, and expand my farms
Why are you making metal crafts instead of stone crafts? The stone ones ...1. Don't require a metal smith, a wood furnace and expansive mining operations 2. clear out some of those giant stone stockpiles that inevitably arise 3. reserve your metal for far more useful things...like coins and weapons.
Plus the traders that come don't really have that much to offer. I figure 12 or so limestone mugs of normal quality is usually enough to grab everything off their wagon. I also see your doors are pretty far back from the river, but the river can flood out to 20 tiles (sometimes). And that might be quite a distance for your dwarven farmers/fishers to run to if they're being chased by flood waters or a flood of lizardmen. Also, I don't think the humans are going to be able to trade with you if your road gets all the way out. First, I'm not sure if they can go through doors, and second, the entryway to your trade depot is only one tile large anyway. Perhaps that's something to think about for the future, anyway.
Well, first, the trade depot is best built outside - the wagons will never be able to get to it (they're 3 tiles wide) and yes, the road has to go all the way to the edge of the map.
Second of all, crafts - stone crafts only. But do a lot of them - trade a few for the items that you want and give a lot as gifts. Later on however, when humans will come with wagons and you will have make trade agreements with them you will need quite a bit more to be able to pay for all their goods.
As for the farm, it's nothing wrong with that, although it's a bit risky with the inevitable attacks. Again, traps, traps and more traps is the best way to contain enemies.
<!--quoteo(post=1588804:date=Dec 15 2006, 04:27 PM:name=UltimaGecko)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(UltimaGecko @ Dec 15 2006, 04:27 PM) [snapback]1588804[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> Of course, I've got like 3 architects and none of them want to build my new bridge, which leads me to believe there's some sort of bug with having one bridge, deleting it and putting one that covers that same area. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Well I've rebuilt atleast 2 bridges in version 0.22.120.23a and it worked fine. They weren't built exactly the same but they did overlap(ie I destroyed my single lane bridge and built a double lane one over the same spot). Do you have any kind of access to the other side? If you don't it's possible that you are using stone, block or whatever kind of material that is located at the other side of the bridge(remember each stone in the build menu is a specific one not just that type of stone as a whole). So since they can't find any way to get the stuff the build the bridge it's possible they just don't work. Also make sure that there's nothing blocking the bridges way. Stone, blocks everything will block the bridge from being built if they are lying in the area that it is supposed to be built. Normally this won't matter because your dwarfs will move whatever is blocking. However if there is no access to the other side, they won't be able to and so they will just suspend the bridges contruction. If that's the problem you will have to rebuilt a smaller bridge for them to get to the other side so they can clear it. Finally sometimes they like suspending construction even if they can get to whatever is blocking it. I think this is because the thing blocking it has already been tasked for moving so they can't move it themselves. If that's the case then wait till whatever is blocking it is cleared then use the t menu to highlight the bridge and unsuspend it's contruction. Oh and of course use the t menu anyway to check and make sure you didn't accidently suspend the bridge from being built or anything.
Edit- Btw new version out with bugfixes for those who have already upgraded to 0.22.120.23b
Three kittens and a Jeweler walked right into an advancing column of lava flowing down a channel. The lava was en route to my front-door defenses. Silly BBQ'd kittens and dwarves. The lava defences turned out to be ineffectual as the lava didn't flood out my front door to kill the attacking goblins that were laying siege to my fortress. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" />
This is my eighth year on my first fortress and everything's going OKish. Apart from the occasional impromptu BBQ.
My little dorf fortress so far...it extends further down and inwards but I had no room for it all <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/nerd-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::nerdy::" border="0" alt="nerd-fix.gif" />
Farming is currently somewhat shoddy - for some reason my farmers aren't that effective...
In either case, one single entrance to the fort - am yet to fortify the walls in the entrance corridor to the two barracks on each side and of course cram in a few more traps. River entries are all trapped as well, so no pesky snakemen or such will get in unharmed. I also have two unfinished barracks on either side of the river which will later on host a few soldiers since traffic across the river will be rather high. For some reason I've not had any attacks yet - maybe I've just been lucky.
Am currently busy polishing the floor of what I have and set up rooms for my first nobles as well as normal rooms for the rest. Am gonna dig further in to the chasm soon and set up defenses there before proceeding to the magma.
I guess that after that I'll prepare a moat on the outside...I'm almost on my third year but I wanna be prepped for the sieges.
Sooo...no major disasters yet. The most serious thing at the moment are ineffective farms and some lack of food. Can't even get booze production going, but on the other hand I'll get a huge shipment from the hunams next year...assuming that they will hold their end of the bargain <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/confused-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="???" border="0" alt="confused-fix.gif" />
Sheesh. I just got the Hammerer noble this spring (my seventh year). The thing is, the Baroness consort I have has a weak spot for red spinels, and they are not plentiful in my fort. So, a mandate for red spinel items goes unheeded, and a jeweler is sentenced to two hammerings. So I think, that's not so bad, dwarves are tough creatures, she'll be fine. So the Hammerer goes and breaks her spine and leaves her to suffocate to death in the jail room.
Aside from that, nothing big is happening. Haven't had a seige yet, or even an ambush this whole year (a raccoon stole a shirt, that's about it). I just got a magma forge running, so I'm going to dump a whole bunch of magma into the chasm, and then pipe some magma closer to the centre of my fortress for quick and easy access. Then, a steam trap.
I was looking into making some new kind of glass to deal with a possessed dwarf. So I decided to collect some sand when I noticed I had a couple bags available.
It said it needed an empty bag...
So I inspect the contents of the first one: sand.
Well that's good, but there was another bag, what's in that one?
Tirist Zonamud, child
Not something I expected to find thrown into one of my store rooms.
Lol...seems that a child-snatcher had some fun <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
I think that this was somewhat bugged too - remember to check all bags each time you expose snatchers. Only way for the time being - as far as I know - that you can release children that has been captured is by sending the bag they are in to the depot. But yeah, only problem is of course that you can only do this when you have merchants visiting.
<a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2007/03/28/ascii-based-dwarf-fortress-is-the-future-of-video-games/" target="_blank">a lil' Joystiq article on the game</a>
I gotta try this sucker again. I didn't get very far the first time I tried it...
Awesomesauce. I started playing Dorf Fort again two days ago. Good thing <b>I</b> didn't have to threadsurrect this thread <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/nerd-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::nerdy::" border="0" alt="nerd-fix.gif" /> .
I had to start over, because my old fort... died. I ran out of food at the end of the winter, and by the time my farmers were able to grow some 'shrooms, my dorves were angry and hungry. But even though there was soon a good amount of mushrooms and some meat available, my dwarfs just stayed East side of the river. OMG WHY?! I just though it was some stupid bug, until I noticed... a TREE had grown in my cave, blocking the only hallway between the East and West side of the river.
<a href="http://koti.mbnet.fi/retales/Fort_Retales.png" target="_blank">Here</a> is my new fortress. I've had to start over during these two days due to an.... elephant incident <_< .
This game is fun. I haven't done Dwarf Fortress mode yet, but adventurer mode is fun enough. I went around first as a grappler; killing things with your bare hands, while fun, is tough. I wound up just grabbing things by the throat and strangling them to death. Then I played a swordsman. Boy was that fun! I was told to fight a minotaur, so I found him, confront him, then, with my shield hand, grabbed one of his horns and then lopped off its head with my sword.
Fun. It's tons more fun to use a bladed weapon than go unarmed, since when you fight that way, limbs and fingers and hands go flying everywhere. Glorious.
Okay, in adventurer mode, how do I change weapons?
I've probably asked this before, though probably not so succinctly, but how smart are dorfs? how much micromanagement do you have to do, really? the game seems so cool but soo overwhelming. selecting jobs for tens and eventually hundreds of dwarves, telling them where to put stuff, taking care of how full the stuff bins get, telling them exactly what needs to be crafted (out of probably hundreds of items in tens of workshops), what to wear/equip, what to eat, what not to eat, etc. it would be awesome if I could just tell them where to dig and where the rooms should be and they'd do the rest <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" /> of course it's important to have the option of micromanagement, but it shouldn't be necessary most of the time... I want it to play out kinda like Sim Ant, if anyone remembers that game =p you could tell your ants where the food is and how aggressive to be and how much to breed and whatnot, but for the most part they took care of themselves if you left them alone.
They're smart enough to do any task you tell them to perfectly, by knowing exactly where to find what they need and where to put what they don't need. That's like asking how smart humans are when the guy in charge of the city has to plan all the buildings and the roads and the utilities and the taxes and the regulations and stuff; no matter how smart people are, the guy in charge still has to make many, many decisions if he's going to have any control at all over the final outcome.
They're about as smart as one can demand from "people" who are incapable of making real decisions and can only follow pre-programmed decision processes. They have occasional quirks and oddities, and sometimes they're stupid (like abandoning a task moments before it is completed to go eat, then returning later and having to start over from scratch), but in general they're pretty good at taking care of themselves. You won't find 'em starving to death while there's food to be had, for example.
A lot of the orders you give are pretty broad in scope. You can typically get a lot done with relatively few commands. You designate some trees to be chopped down (which is basically like dragging out a rectangle in a paint program), and your woodcutter dwarves will go and chop down the trees. When a tree is chopped down, an idle dwarf will run over and haul it back to your lumber stockpile (and once all the designated trees have been chopped down, your woodcutters will help with that task too). Next you'll probably want to make beds to sleep in or barrels to store food in, so you scroll over to your woodworking workshop and order it to produce the appropriate amount of wooden stuff you want. At this point a woodworker will come running and start making sawdust (and maybe wooden goods too). He may stay there until the job is finished, or until he gets tired, or hungry, or thirsty, or bored, or goes insane, or is attacked by snakemen, or is attacked by elephants, or is attacked by an insane dwarf, or any of the myriad distractions that can cause dwarves to stop doing what they're doing, at which point another woodcutter will come running to take over for him - and so on and so forth until all the ordered wooden goods have been produced. By the way, each time a bed (for instance) is finished, an idle dwarf will come running and lug it off to your furniture stockpile for storage until you wish to place it somewhere. If there's no stockpile, the beds will remain in the workshop, cluttering it up and eventually slowing productivity to a crawl. "Look, dwarflord, th' beds are stacked three layers high on top o' me workbench! I kinnae work like this! Ye hafta do summat!" Later on, the micromanagement would get quite heavy, but you get specialist dwarves to help you. One of the first one you get is the manager (cherish him), who basically eliminates the need for you to ever interact directly with your workshops again. Need thirty new beds because your fortress was already overflowing and a host of dwarves decided to immigrate? You just tell the manager to get thirty beds done, and he'll worry about outdelegating the task to your various workshops.
In summary, yes, there's a lot of micromanagement. It's inescapable. But considering the deep complexity of the game, it has been kept to a manageable amount and could have been much, much worse. One thing that helps is to hang out in IRC so you can ask questions to more experienced players.
Also, your first fort or two or three will end in hilariously horrible tragedies. That's part of the attraction too. And carved idols that "menace with spikes of kitten leather."
<!--quoteo(post=1617667:date=Mar 29 2007, 11:13 AM:name=Retales)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Retales @ Mar 29 2007, 11:13 AM) [snapback]1617667[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> You have to put your weapon away, and just pick up (or remove from backpack) the one you want to wield... I think. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Got it.
Hmm I hit a lion with a hammer and it exploded in a flurry of gore.
Is there any way to tell my masons to use for example marble? My manager has demanded marble items in dining room and he's getting pretty angry. I ordered the dorves to build Light stone tables, but so far they have picked moonstone instead of marble as the material... Just my luck.
Also, how can I get more (different kinds of) farmable seeds? I've tried gathering plants from the surroundings and checking caravans for seeds, but without luck.
[edit] H'okay, apparently marble table doesn't count as a "marble item". Neither does a marble statue D: . What actually counts as one? _ . I don't want to anger my Manager, since he's keeping this fort operational <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
[edit #2] Fix'd! I removed his dining room, added a marble statue, and then reassigned the room to him. Now he's pleased :T
Comments
haven't gone back in to try something yet...
you could have made it. maybe.
edit: anyone heard of an elven caravan coming and having no goods to trade?
edit2: I'd like a moment of silence for my best mason.
He died in a colapse when I expanded a room for the mayor.
He was there from the beginning, he always did his job, he was a good dwarf.
4 dwarves died in this incident.
Later on, another of my masons refused to rest and recover from the incident. He would start his job, then cry out and yell at other dwarves. After while, he fell where he worked and died soon after.
How do you get your soldiers to follow orders? I put my recruits off duty for a while so they could spar, but when a batman showed up and I put them on duty, they just stood outside the fortress, being worthless. They wouldn't go to their station.
My best (legendary) miner died when he struck magma <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" />
How do you get your soldiers to follow orders? I put my recruits off duty for a while so they could spar, but when a batman showed up and I put them on duty, they just stood outside the fortress, being worthless. They wouldn't go to their station.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's possible the leader of the squad was busy or asleep. If he's not around none of the dwarfs in the squad will go to their station. So if there an emergency it's probably best that you zoom on the commander and make sure he's not doing anything like sleeping, drinking or eating or whatever. If he is, reassign the squad under a dwarf that isn't busy and they should move to their station.
Of course, I've got like 3 architects and none of them want to build my new bridge, which leads me to believe there's some sort of bug with having one bridge, deleting it and putting one that covers that same area.
The next items on my list are to make some more stone doors so I can finishing compartmentalizing my fort (most appearent in north section), make a kennel train some wardogs( probably to the left of the barracks), finish the road, and expand my farms
<img src="http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j11/Pvtbones/Dorf%20Fort/dorffort3.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
and now it's in the right thread.
Why are you making metal crafts instead of stone crafts? The stone ones ...1. Don't require a metal smith, a wood furnace and expansive mining operations 2. clear out some of those giant stone stockpiles that inevitably arise 3. reserve your metal for far more useful things...like coins and weapons.
Plus the traders that come don't really have that much to offer. I figure 12 or so limestone mugs of normal quality is usually enough to grab everything off their wagon. I also see your doors are pretty far back from the river, but the river can flood out to 20 tiles (sometimes). And that might be quite a distance for your dwarven farmers/fishers to run to if they're being chased by flood waters or a flood of lizardmen. Also, I don't think the humans are going to be able to trade with you if your road gets all the way out. First, I'm not sure if they can go through doors, and second, the entryway to your trade depot is only one tile large anyway. Perhaps that's something to think about for the future, anyway.
Second of all, crafts - stone crafts only. But do a lot of them - trade a few for the items that you want and give a lot as gifts.
Later on however, when humans will come with wagons and you will have make trade agreements with them you will need quite a bit more to be able to pay for all their goods.
As for the farm, it's nothing wrong with that, although it's a bit risky with the inevitable attacks. Again, traps, traps and more traps is the best way to contain enemies.
Of course, I've got like 3 architects and none of them want to build my new bridge, which leads me to believe there's some sort of bug with having one bridge, deleting it and putting one that covers that same area.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well I've rebuilt atleast 2 bridges in version 0.22.120.23a and it worked fine. They weren't built exactly the same but they did overlap(ie I destroyed my single lane bridge and built a double lane one over the same spot). Do you have any kind of access to the other side? If you don't it's possible that you are using stone, block or whatever kind of material that is located at the other side of the bridge(remember each stone in the build menu is a specific one not just that type of stone as a whole). So since they can't find any way to get the stuff the build the bridge it's possible they just don't work. Also make sure that there's nothing blocking the bridges way. Stone, blocks everything will block the bridge from being built if they are lying in the area that it is supposed to be built. Normally this won't matter because your dwarfs will move whatever is blocking. However if there is no access to the other side, they won't be able to and so they will just suspend the bridges contruction. If that's the problem you will have to rebuilt a smaller bridge for them to get to the other side so they can clear it. Finally sometimes they like suspending construction even if they can get to whatever is blocking it. I think this is because the thing blocking it has already been tasked for moving so they can't move it themselves. If that's the case then wait till whatever is blocking it is cleared then use the t menu to highlight the bridge and unsuspend it's contruction. Oh and of course use the t menu anyway to check and make sure you didn't accidently suspend the bridge from being built or anything.
Edit- Btw new version out with bugfixes for those who have already upgraded to 0.22.120.23b
This is my eighth year on my first fortress and everything's going OKish. Apart from the occasional impromptu BBQ.
--Scythe--
My little dorf fortress so far...it extends further down and inwards but I had no room for it all <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/nerd-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::nerdy::" border="0" alt="nerd-fix.gif" />
Farming is currently somewhat shoddy - for some reason my farmers aren't that effective...
In either case, one single entrance to the fort - am yet to fortify the walls in the entrance corridor to the two barracks on each side and of course cram in a few more traps. River entries are all trapped as well, so no pesky snakemen or such will get in unharmed. I also have two unfinished barracks on either side of the river which will later on host a few soldiers since traffic across the river will be rather high. For some reason I've not had any attacks yet - maybe I've just been lucky.
Am currently busy polishing the floor of what I have and set up rooms for my first nobles as well as normal rooms for the rest. Am gonna dig further in to the chasm soon and set up defenses there before proceeding to the magma.
I guess that after that I'll prepare a moat on the outside...I'm almost on my third year but I wanna be prepped for the sieges.
Sooo...no major disasters yet. The most serious thing at the moment are ineffective farms and some lack of food. Can't even get booze production going, but on the other hand I'll get a huge shipment from the hunams next year...assuming that they will hold their end of the bargain <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/confused-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="???" border="0" alt="confused-fix.gif" />
Aside from that, nothing big is happening. Haven't had a seige yet, or even an ambush this whole year (a raccoon stole a shirt, that's about it). I just got a magma forge running, so I'm going to dump a whole bunch of magma into the chasm, and then pipe some magma closer to the centre of my fortress for quick and easy access. Then, a steam trap.
Over population.
...Which can be easily solved by making every Dorf a Hunter. >.>
I was looking into making some new kind of glass to deal with a possessed dwarf. So I decided to collect some sand when I noticed I had a couple bags available.
It said it needed an empty bag...
So I inspect the contents of the first one: sand.
Well that's good, but there was another bag, what's in that one?
Tirist Zonamud, child
Not something I expected to find thrown into one of my store rooms.
I think that this was somewhat bugged too - remember to check all bags each time you expose snatchers. Only way for the time being - as far as I know - that you can release children that has been captured is by sending the bag they are in to the depot. But yeah, only problem is of course that you can only do this when you have merchants visiting.
I gotta try this sucker again. I didn't get very far the first time I tried it...
I had to start over, because my old fort... died. I ran out of food at the end of the winter, and by the time my farmers were able to grow some 'shrooms, my dorves were angry and hungry. But even though there was soon a good amount of mushrooms and some meat available, my dwarfs just stayed East side of the river. OMG WHY?! I just though it was some stupid bug, until I noticed... a TREE had grown in my cave, blocking the only hallway between the East and West side of the river.
<a href="http://koti.mbnet.fi/retales/Fort_Retales.png" target="_blank">Here</a> is my new fortress. I've had to start over during these two days due to an.... elephant incident <_< .
Fun. It's tons more fun to use a bladed weapon than go unarmed, since when you fight that way, limbs and fingers and hands go flying everywhere. Glorious.
Okay, in adventurer mode, how do I change weapons?
A lot of the orders you give are pretty broad in scope. You can typically get a lot done with relatively few commands.
You designate some trees to be chopped down (which is basically like dragging out a rectangle in a paint program), and your woodcutter dwarves will go and chop down the trees. When a tree is chopped down, an idle dwarf will run over and haul it back to your lumber stockpile (and once all the designated trees have been chopped down, your woodcutters will help with that task too).
Next you'll probably want to make beds to sleep in or barrels to store food in, so you scroll over to your woodworking workshop and order it to produce the appropriate amount of wooden stuff you want. At this point a woodworker will come running and start making sawdust (and maybe wooden goods too). He may stay there until the job is finished, or until he gets tired, or hungry, or thirsty, or bored, or goes insane, or is attacked by snakemen, or is attacked by elephants, or is attacked by an insane dwarf, or any of the myriad distractions that can cause dwarves to stop doing what they're doing, at which point another woodcutter will come running to take over for him - and so on and so forth until all the ordered wooden goods have been produced.
By the way, each time a bed (for instance) is finished, an idle dwarf will come running and lug it off to your furniture stockpile for storage until you wish to place it somewhere. If there's no stockpile, the beds will remain in the workshop, cluttering it up and eventually slowing productivity to a crawl. "Look, dwarflord, th' beds are stacked three layers high on top o' me workbench! I kinnae work like this! Ye hafta do summat!"
Later on, the micromanagement would get quite heavy, but you get specialist dwarves to help you. One of the first one you get is the manager (cherish him), who basically eliminates the need for you to ever interact directly with your workshops again. Need thirty new beds because your fortress was already overflowing and a host of dwarves decided to immigrate? You just tell the manager to get thirty beds done, and he'll worry about outdelegating the task to your various workshops.
In summary, yes, there's a lot of micromanagement. It's inescapable. But considering the deep complexity of the game, it has been kept to a manageable amount and could have been much, much worse. One thing that helps is to hang out in IRC so you can ask questions to more experienced players.
Also, your first fort or two or three will end in hilariously horrible tragedies. That's part of the attraction too. And carved idols that "menace with spikes of kitten leather."
You have to put your weapon away, and just pick up (or remove from backpack) the one you want to wield... I think.
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Got it.
Hmm I hit a lion with a hammer and it exploded in a flurry of gore.
....<b>Awesome</b>.
Also, how can I get more (different kinds of) farmable seeds? I've tried gathering plants from the surroundings and checking caravans for seeds, but without luck.
[edit] H'okay, apparently marble table doesn't count as a "marble item". Neither does a marble statue D: . What actually counts as one? _ . I don't want to anger my Manager, since he's keeping this fort operational <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
[edit #2] Fix'd! I removed his dining room, added a marble statue, and then reassigned the room to him. Now he's pleased :T